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Monday, March 26, 2012

What NullSec Pilots Don't Understand About Faction War

I find it amusing that the biggest supporters of some of CCP's more controversial plans for Faction War are non Faction War pilots. I am not one of those people that think you should only comment on something if you have some first hand knowledge about it. I think that having outside perspective is great, but I also think that many of these pilots are missing some crucial facts and perspective.

So, as a pilot who has lived in nullsec for years in the past, I'm going to try to speak your languge and bridge the gap--and explain to you the issues that FW currently faces right now.

Many pilots dream of taking space in nullsec. Owning systems, constellations, and regions, means access to ratting grounds, moons that offer valuable resources, higher end minerals, and other riches.

However, with this comes great risk. Risk of having assets trapped in stations if warring parties lock you in and take over. Risk of losing assets in the defense of your space. Nullsec, in many ways, is the wild frontier of EVE.

Now imagine, that instead, null sec had nothing. Yes, nothing. There is no great ratting grounds, no high-end moon minerals and mining belts. No high level plexes. Just, space. Now, CCP expects you to build stations out here and fight over this space that has nothing.

In fact, the only thing that you will gain by expanding and building in null-sec is access to missions in the stations you defend. This is it.

You laugh. You rage. You wonder what CCP is thinking? You spit in my eye.

Welcome to Faction War.

But we're not quite there yet. Imagine in this picture of nullsec full of nothingness that you are expected to fight over, there is an additional risk. There are no rumors of war, or large fleets of enemies gathering nearby, making it obvious they will take your space. There is no, long, drawn out battles that take days or weeks to take the space. There are no timers that give you 24 hours to react. In this world, you aren't attacked in one or two systems, giving you the chance in other systems to move belongings and assets.

Instead, when you go to sleep tonight, there is the risk that when you wake up, everything is gone. No warning. No time to react. No time to even fight to defend. You wake up, and you can not dock anywhere, get any of your stuff. The only option is to buy new stuff in highsec, then turn around and try to come back --if you have the isk.

You rage. You wonder, why would I even go to nullsec in these circumstances? I don't even care about missions! You spit in my eye because it is a horrible, dumb proposition.

I laugh at you and tell you to stop acting like a baby. Get your ass to nullsec and start fighting over those stations, boys!

And Welcome to Faction War.

We're still not quite there. Now, on top of all these things, CCP is giving you some wonderful options that should help sooth your souls! You will now be given the ability to upgrade your systems!

You will be given the opportunity to upgrade your system so that you can prevent ship X from entering your system. You rarely use Ship X--just for funsies once in a while. Also, your enemies who take over your systems never bring Sip X to do it. However, you will have the ability to prevent them from bringing ship X! Aren't you excited?

In addition, you will be able to upgrade to make things like your medical clone cheaper, or to make it so that your missions give you better stuff by some small fraction of an amount.

The way you can do all this is by donating the rewards you get for doing your missions voluntarily.

You are getting hysterical. Why would you donate your mission rewards for stuff you don't care about or want? Why would you donate if you can just let someone else donate? What are we, in kindergarten? Is CCP trying to teach us how to share?

Maybe, we should do this donate thing on a higher level! We could make the market like this, allowing people to donate to a fund that lets a group of players buy a POS -- with one hitch. Once you donate your isk, and get your POS, you don't necessarily have control over it. Anyone that CCP says is your friend has control over it!

You fly about in a rage and spit in my eye.

Seriously? I respond. You are such a baby. CCP is giving you some wonderful things, and you are just being dumb.

Welcome to Faction War.

We are almost done! There is another thing to add to this mix. Amidst all of this--this fighting over your space full of nothingness for missions your don't care about to buy upgrades you don't need or want or care for, while risking great numbers of assets in the meantime that could be taken away while you sleep at night, we have one more thing.

Everyone, except the alliance you are the most bitter enemies with, can use your space, dock in your stations no matter who owns it, and take advantage of any upgrades you may have installed. They do not risk anything by using your stations -- they can come and go freely.

Even if they are your enemy. They aren't your most bittermost enemy, so it doesn't matter.

You walk out. You've had enough. You have better things to do with your time. You are disgusted. I'm talking gibberish. You are leaving to become a pirate or do something else. Perhaps play a different game now.

I say you are being childish, and that all of this makes perfect, logical sense, you are just too dumb to see it. You are a noob. You are all noobs.

Would that there WAS some mechanism for small alliances to actually hold and defend sov in null -- the "coalition" lifestyle is very much groupthink-oriented... hence the "bandwagon comments". True independent thought is at best barely tolerated.Big null coalitions are like Murrican Big Company X, you toe the company line, don't make waves, just be another drone in a cubicle, and you get along just fine.Make waves, step obviously across the line, etc, and you find yourself persona non grata pretty quickly. ;-)

Also, common misconception that nullseccers move there and never look back. Most have trade/hauler alts in hisec, if not incursioning alts. I've said this several times, and for some reason nobody seems to believe it, but when I showed up with my shit and "checked in" to null, and asked where the good spots to make quick ISK were, the response was unanimously: "JC back to hisec, do hisec Incursions, that's we're all doing."

It's not that nullsec people aren't informed, etc, about hisec PvP, they don't like you cause you make "IncursionsloleasyISK" impossible ... cause they WON'T get into a mixed Incursion fleet while wardecced.

As I said on your other entry, Susan, you guys deserve better than being "guinea pigs" for the next iteration of nullsov "improvements". There's a test server for, I dunno, TESTING things, and that's probably where that should take place, I'd think.

Really, if you guys wanted to be nullseccers, you'd probably be IN NULLSEC, I would think.

I get that making "FW more meaningful" is a grand and glorious ideal for CCP ... but so long as its impacts are only felt in certain areas of lowsec, that will never happen. Now if your actions in low also reverberated thru neighboring areas of highsec, maybe even null, that would be a different story.

What if FW people could not only "take" lowsec systems, but bordering highsec ones as well?What if you guys could claim frontier boundary NPC/sov null systems? HED would definitely be more exciting if we had more "hostile" visitation than the occasional CVA-failcamp... Amarr militia (flying Minmatar ships of course lol) would be great fun and probably give some great :goodfights: (note I think Amarr militia should do this whether they implement "sov for FW" or not).

You're absolutely right, though, about all the frustration and 'spit in my eye' ... after a few weeks of playing my FW alt I pulled him and decided to repurpose him. I think I, like a lot of people who try it for a while then quit, liked the _idea_ of FW, but found the implementation sucked, for all the reasons you stated above.

I think the direction of CPP is good, but you are absolutely right that it's just a shallow echo of nullsec Sov system now.

Let me suggest something much better: the Faction Militia is FACTION militia, their actions shall affect the whole faction. So if system X is taken by the Minmatar Militia, then EVERYONE is affected by it and the effect depends on their Faction Standing with Minmatar. Something like that:- Mining: Standing*2% bonus/penalty (80% mining yield when -10, 120% when +10) as locals are helping/slowing you.- Missioning: Standing*3% bonus/penalty for LP and ISK rewards- Repairs, clone costs: Standing*3% discount/overpay- Broker fees calculate with the faction standing of the controlling faction- Below -2 faction standing you can't access agents.- Below -5 faction standing you can't dock/undock with a SHIP. You can do with your capsule, so you can go to your assets and sell them or set up courier contracts.

This would mean that Militia makes difference. But why is it so great for them? A serious change to faction standing mechanic:- Militia members gain faction standing fighting for the faction- For non-members the only source of faction standing comes from donating to the militia. I can only raise my faction standing by giving ISK, LP or minerals to the militia effort and the donated goods will go the militia office (some cleverly programmed code) that distribute it among the militia members who contribute to taking and defending systems. Of course the derived modification effects apply, so if I buy 1 Caldari standing, I get +0.5 Amarr, -0.5 Gallente, -0.3 Minmatar (if I remember the numbers correctly)

This way the FW people would get a steady income to pay their ships and ammo from the people they fighting for.

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